eaves till about
1840; then it bursts into blossom of rapturous praise, and about 1870 is
hung with clusters of the fruit of "permanent" appreciation. In 1919,
little more than a century from its first evolution in obscurity, it
recedes again in the raggedness of obloquy, and cumbers the earth, as
dim old "genteel" Wordsworth, whom we are assured that nobody reads. But
why were "the best judges" scornful in 1800 and again in 1919 of what
gave the noblest and the most inspiriting pleasure to "the best judges"
in 1870? The execution of the verse has not altered, the conditions of
imagination seem the same, why then is the estimate always changing? Is
every form of poetic taste, is all trained enjoyment of poetry, merely a
graduated illusion which goes up and down like a wave of the sea and
carries "the best judges" with it? If not, who is right, and who is
wrong, and what is the use of dogmatising? Let us unite to quit all vain
ambition, and prefer the jangle of the music-halls, with its direct
"aesthetic thrill."

So far as I know, the only philosopher who has dared to face this
problem is Mr. Balfour, in the brilliant second chapter of his
"Foundations of Belief." He has there asked, "Is there any fixed and
permanent element in beauty?" The result of his inquiry is
disconcerting; after much discussion he decides that there is not. Mr.
Balfour deals, in particular, with only two forms of art, Music and
Dress, but he tacitly includes the others with them. It is certain that
the result of his investigations is the singularly stultifying one that
we are not permitted to expect "permanent relations" in or behind the
feeling of poetic beauty, which may be indifferently awakened by Blake
to-day and by Hayley to-morrow. If the critic says that the verse of
Blake is beautiful and that of Hayley is not, he merely "expounds
case-made law." The result seems to be that no canons of taste exist;
that what are called "laws" of style are enacted only for those who make
them, and for those whom the makers can bully into accepting their
legislation, a new generation of lawbreakers being perfectly free to
repeal the code. Southey yesterday and Keats to-day; why not Southey
again to-morrow, or perhaps Tupper? Such is the cynical _cul-de-sac_
into which the logic of a philosopher drives us.

We have had in France an example of _volte-face_ in taste which I
confess has left me gasping. I imagine that if Mr. Balfour was able to
spare a mome